The invention relates to improvements in apparatus for applying adhesive to running webs of paper or the like, and more particularly to improvements in apparatus (often called pasters) which are used in cigarette rod making, filter rod making and like machines to supply adhesive to running webs of cigarette paper, imitation cork, tipping paper and the like. Apparatus of such character are used in machines for the making of rod-shaped smokers' products and serve to apply adhesive to one marginal portion of a web so that the one marginal portion can be folded over and adheres to the other marginal portion of the same web when the latter is draped around a rod of fibrous material, such as natural, reconstituted and/or substitute tobacco or filter material for tobacco smoke.
In many heretofore known pasters, the element which applies adhesive to one marginal portion of a running web of cigarette paper or the like is a roller or wheel. Such rollers or wheels are preferred for the application of a pasty starch-containing adhesive. As a rule, the marginal portion of a web, which is about to be coated with adhesive, projects tangentially of the advancing tobacco rod or filter rod which is already draped into the remaining (major) portion of the web. The freshly coated marginal portion is then folded over the other marginal portion to form therewith a customary seam which extends in parallelism with the axis of the thus obtained cigarette rod, filter rod or another rod which is ready to be subjected to the action of a cutoff so as to yield a file of plain cigarettes, cigarillos, cigars, cheroots or filter rod sections of unit length or multiple unit length.
Problems arise in machines which are designed to simultaneously produce several rod-like smokers' products, for example, in so-called twin cigarette rod making machines which turn out two continuous cigarette rods. The space in such machines is at a premium and two discrete pasters, one for each cigarette rod, occupy a substantial amount of space.